Home World of Warcraft Classes Vengeance Demon Hunter 9.0.5 Guide

Vengeance Demon Hunter 9.0.5 Guide

Updated Author: ~31 min

Vengeance Deamon Hunter in Shadowlands

Vengeance Demon Hunter is a tank, relying on a fel magic for protection.

  • Fantasy: Demonic elf, who use Legion magic against enemies. Demon Hunter is an aggressive and fast tank, tearing souls out of enemies for their own needs.
  • Races: Only Night elves and Blood elves can be Demon Hunters.
  • Resources: Fury – energy bar, which is required for abilities. Фрагменты души — tiny spheres that produces heal.
  • Weapons: Demon hunters can use Warglaives, Fist Weapons, One-Handed Axes and Swords.
  • Level: Demon hunter starts the game at the level of 8.
  • Искусность: оскверненная кровь increases your attack power and armor if  Демонические шипы is active.

Welcome to the Vengeance Demon Hunter guide’s page at Overgear! This guide will teach you all the tricks of the Vengeance spec in different aspects of the game and also how to survive even at the toughest challenges of the Shadowlands. You’ll learn what talents to take, which equipment is the best, and which covenant to choose. All of this stuff and even more awaits you on this page.

Pros

  • Strong defensive abilities with low CD
  • Decent magic protection
  • High mobility
  • Lots of control
  • High DPS, especially in AoE

Cons

  • Low uptime of an active protection
  • No overall cooldown that reduces all damage taken

The Author

This guide is written by Хяосяша (Hyaosyasha), a Russian raider from “Банхаммер” (Banhammer) guild, a fan of Mythic+s and a veteran of World of Warcraft. I love and actually know how to play different roles and classes, and on my Twitch streams, you’ll find high-tier Mythic+s completion and some Mythic Raiding.

Glossary

Main abilities

Talents

On reaching several levels, you will open new Talent tiers. In each tier, you can choose one Talent at a time. Talents can affect your abilities in different ways: add new ones, replace old ones, passively modify various effects and spells. You can change Talents while you’re in Sanctums or in rest areas, but if there are no such places nearby, you can use Tome of the Tranquil Mind, which allows you to change Talents within a minute. Note that Talents can’t be changed in combat. Also, if a Talent selected in a certain tier is on CD, you’ll have to wait for it to recharge in order to change it. 

Tier 1 Lvl 15. DPS Talents

Vengeance Demon Hunter 9.0.5 Guide

Tier 2 Lvl 25. Increases durability

Vengeance Demon Hunter 9.0.5 Guide

Tier 3 Lvl 30. Increases durability

Vengeance Demon Hunter 9.0.5 Guide

  • Инфернальная броня – increases Armor by 20% during Обжигающего жара, and deals some damage to melee attackers. This talent increases survivability, but by a very small amount. In Shadowlands’ starting gear, it reduces physical damage taken during Heat by approximately 3-5%. This is not enough, moreover, this talent is useless during the active defense, since the survival rate of the DH at this moment is already at a good level. In general, a weak talent.
  • Обугленная плоть – Обжигающего жара damage over time effect increases the duration of the Огненного клейма by 0.5 seconds. A good option for a Brand build as it increases the uptime of this defensive cooldown.
  • Взрывная душа – this is an AoE Finisher that requires Фрагменты души to apply. The ability absorbs all currently available souls and deals AoE damage to all enemies around, depending on the number of souls absorbed. Souls will still heal the Demon Hunter. It also hits enemies with a Frailty effect. Demon Hunter heals 10% of damage dealt to enemies with this effect. This is a very strong talent in this tier, around which a DPS-oriented build is built.

Tier 4 Lvl 35. Increases durability

Vengeance Demon Hunter 9.0.5 Guide

Tier 5 Lvl 40. Seals ModificationVengeance Demon Hunter 9.0.5 Guide

  • Средоточие печатей – all seals automatically aim at your location when used, and the duration of their effect is increased by 2 seconds. A good choice for a raid, as it gives the most dps boost in this tier – but this boost is negligible anyway.
  • Ускоренные печати – all seals are activated 1 sec faster, and their cooldown is reduced by 20%. Another good choice for a raid, especially if you’ve chosen Kyriani, as the Элизийский декрет is also a seal.
  • Печать цепей – after 2 seconds, pulls all enemies into the center of the seal and slows them by 70% for 6 seconds. This is the standard choice for Mythic + Keys or those raid encounters where you need to group mobs at one point.

Tier 6 lvl 45. Increases durability

Vengeance Demon Hunter 9.0.5 Guide

Tier 7 Lvl 50. Increases durability

Vengeance Demon Hunter 9.0.5 Guide

To sum up, here are your common builds:

  1. DPS oriented build through Взрывную душу:

This build is more suitable for Mythic + Keys, as it aims to deal maximum damage. Survival here is also good, but more focused on self-healing.

  1. Build for maximum survival through Огненное клеймо:

This build is more suitable for raids, as well as high Mythic + keys, where maximum survivability is required. The build allows you to tank more damage with your face and will help you survive those moments in which you would otherwise have to kite. However, to fully implement this build, you need a certain Legendary, as well as a conduit – we will talk about this later.

Covenants

In Shadowlands, players are able to quest through four new zones ruled by ancient and powerful Covenants. As you progress through the game, you’ll play through each of the four new zones where the Covenants hold dominion, learning about what each Covenant stands for and experiencing some of the powers that they offer. Upon reaching the max level of 60, players can join one of these Covenants.

Kyrians live in Bastion, Necrolords control Maldraxxus, the Night Fae inhabit Ardenweald, and Revendreth is the home of Venthyrs. Each Covenant has unique class abilities and signature abilities available to players who choose to join them at max level.

In this guide, we’ll take a look at all the new Covenant abilities, and how they affect the Vengeance gameplay.

Covenants Rating

Mythic+:

  • Kyrian > Venthyr = Night Fae = Necrolord

Raids:

  • Kyrian > Necrolord > Venthyr = Night Fae

At the moment, I can recommend Kyrian as a great option both for raids and mythic+. Kyrian will provide you with good DPS and survivability, and one of the best soulbinds in the whole game.

Kyrian

  • Class ability: Элизийский декрет – Seal, 1 min cooldown, deals damage and spawns 3 Lesser Soul Shards.
  • Signature ability: Summon Steward – call your steward to bring you a Phial of Serenity that can be consumed to restore 20% health and remove all Curse, Disease, Poison, and Bleed effects. Your Steward additionally offers access to a selection of useful amenities for 4 min.

Kyrian is the best covenant for AOE damage. Элизийский декрет  deals a lot of damage, spawns 3 souls (albeit with a delay, which will not allow using it as an emergency cooldown), and with a DPS guide it generally turns into a weapon of mass destruction. In addition, the talent Ускоренные печати works for the seal, which reduces its cooldown by 12 seconds. In addition, the Осквернение Разелиха Legendary works for the seal, which reduces the cooldown of the seal by about 12-15 seconds.

Phial of Serenity, which removes almost all negative effects, looks quite strong but requires a proper encounter. In M+ it may come in very handy.​

In general, this Covenant is useful in raids and M+, while Phial of Serenity is especially useful when you need to remove an important debuff.

Venthyr

Venthyr is a strong DPS covenant for one target. The Клеймо греха turns Метаморфозы into a very powerful DPS cooldown in AoE situations. Door of Shadows will be useful for kite mobs and for various skips in Mythic +, as well as for various mechanics in the raid. Venthyr is a good raid covenant, but not a good choice for Mythic +.

Night Fae

  • Class ability: Охота – charge to the target 50 m away, causing decent damage to the target and up to 5 enemies around, and putting a DoT on all hit enemies. In addition, it grants 25% self-healing when dealing damage to the primary target for 30 sec. Cast time 1 sec and 1.5 min cooldown.
  • Signature ability: Soulshape – turn into a Vulpin, teleporting 15 yds forward and increasing your movement speed by 50%. You may reactivate Soulshape every few sec to teleport again. Lasts 12 sec, or indefinitely while in a rest area.

Охота ability deals high damage to one target, and also provides healing. But for Mythic +, this ability looks pretty weak. For a raid, this ability looks better, but it does not have any defensive component, and therefore the covenant can only be recommended in those situations where only damage to one target is needed.

Necrolord

  • Class ability: Подпитка для пламени – summons a demon, killing which, we get a buff for 30% additional damage and 15% reduction in damage taken. Duration 20 seconds. Warblade throw deals massive damage to this demon. 2 min cooldown.
  • Signature ability: Fleshcraft – form a shield of flesh and bone over 4 sec that absorbs damage equal to 20% of your maximum health for 2 min. Channeling near a corpse claims their essence to grow the shield, up to 50% of your maximum health. This is most effective against powerful enemies.

The Necrolords are a rather weak Covenant for the Vengeance Demon Hunter. Not too strong an effect and attachment to one place do not allow this covenant to be distinguished from others. In addition, to activate the bonus from the ability, you will have to kill the demon – and therefore you will not be able to get the bonus quickly.

Soulbinds and Conduits

Players who join a Covenant are able to bind themselves to one of its members, sharing some of their power through an artifact-like talent tree. Each of the different Covenants has three options to choose from, with each Soulbind offering different bonuses.

Conduits add further customization to those Soulbind trees, allowing players to fill empty sockets in the trees with bonuses of their choosing. You can access the Soulbinds User Interface from the Forge of Bonds in your Covenant Sanctum. 

Each Soulbind has 8 Rows, which are unlocked as you gain Renown with your Covenant. There are also 7 Conduit slots although you won’t have access to all of them at once due to the branching nature of the tree.

Be careful when planning your Talent tree – Conduits can be changed to a limited extent, and if you make a mistake, you will have to wait for a long time to change them again.

We will cover the most powerful effects of the Soulbinds.

Soulbnids rating

Kyrian:

  • Raids: Pelagos – the best choice
  • Mythic+: Kleia

Venthyr:

  • Raids, DPS: Nadjia
  • Raids, durability: General Draven
  • Mythic+: Theotar

Night Fae:

  • Raids, Mythic+: Korayn

Necrolord:

  • Raids, mythic+: Marileth

Kyrian

  • Pelagos: A versatile choice for any type of content, which also provides 2 conduits of Finesse and Endurance. 
  • Kleya: Good for Mythic +, but requires 1 Conduit of Precision for the correct bonuses. 
  • Mikanikos: not used.

Venthyr

  • Nadjia: good choice for DpS.
  • Theotar: universal choice.
  • General Draven: choice for maximum durability.

Night Fae

  • Niya: choice for raids.
  • Dreamweaver: weak choice, don’t use it.
  • Korayn: strong soulbind for all types of content.

Necrolord

  • Marileth: good choice, decent defensive soulbind. 
  • Emeni: weak soulbind, can be used only in raids.
  • Heirmir: bad choice.

Conduits

There are 3 types of Conduits: Potency, Endurance and Finesse. Let’s go through those available to the Vengeance Demon Hunter.

Potency

Be sure to choose Нарастающий жар преисподней.
If you have second slot – use conduit of your covenant

Endurance

Be sure to choose Расколотое исцеление.
Second slot: Защитник Скверны if you play with Огненным клеймом / Вязкие чернила во всех остальных случаях.

Finesse

Conduits of Finesse do not increase damage or survivability, so you should use the one that appeals to you the most.

Legendaries

A total of 16 legendary items are available to Demon Hunters in the “Vengeance” specialization – 8 class, and 8 general. We’ll highlight the best ones, as well as the ones that deserve mention.

Best Legendaries for DH Tanks:

  • Пылающая душа – Each soul consumed on Раскалывания душ reduces the cooldown of Огненного клейма by 2 sec. This Legendary is the base of the Firebrand build and is a must for this build.
  • Декларация Сефуза – when you successfully apply crowd control, interrupt spells, or dispel magic, your secondary stats are increased by 15 seconds, cooldown 30 seconds. This is a good Legendary for Mythic + Keys, but it is practically useless in a raid – it is difficult to use its effect.
  • Всеобщая тоска – Casting Fel Desolate summons an allied DH who casts Eye Beam. This Legendary is not bad for dealing damage, but has no defensive effects.
  • Обстрел Скверной – Another DPS Legendary for Mythic +. Dealing with Searing Heat has a chance to grant you 1 charge of Fel Barrage. Each charge increases the damage of your next Warblade Throw by 50% and fires another blade at a nearby target. Stacks up to 5 times. Targeting bosses is almost useless against solo bosses.

Legendaries for specific builds:

Unfortunately, there are not very many legendary options for tank DH. In the case of playing through a defensive build with a Огненным клеймом, you should use Пылающая душа. For Kyrian, you can use Осквернение Разелиха in the event that additional survivability is not needed. In other cases, you can use the Декларация Сефуза for Mythic + and Всеобщая тоска for raid content.

Gameplay

Now let’s look at what a demon hunter needs to do to maximize his damage and survive at the same time

Start of a battle

  1. Use Печать огня for those mobs you will pull
  2. Бросок боевого клинка and Мучение
  3. If you don’t have Fury – use Демонические шипы
  4. Инфернальный удар closer to mobs
  5. If you have Fury – Опустошение Скверной
  6. If you have Fury – Раскалывание душ
  7. Обжигающий жар

Main rotation

  1. Use Covenant ability
  2. Инфернальный удар if you have 2 or almost 2 charges
  3. Опустошение Скверной if Fury > 50
  4. Огненное клеймо for the most dangerous mob in a pack
  5. Взрывная душа if 4+ Soul Shards
  6. Разлом if you will not overcap souls
  7. Обжигающий жар if you will not overcap souls
  8. Раскалывание душ to spend Fury
  9. Печать огня
  10. Бросок боевого клинка when all abilities on a CD or you kite

You should always start the fight with Демоническими шипами already activated, or if you have the opportunity to immediately use Опустошение Скверной. Метаморфозу is best saved for a difficult situation or for dps if you are using the Venthyr covenant.

If you see that your HP is rapidly running out, but there are no saves, it is better to start kiting. Use Печать страдания or Печать цепей to prevent mobs from reaching you immediately, and your healer has time to raise your health.

Also, don’t use all saves at once. Rotate them to maximize your time under defensive abilities. You should not use Демонические шипы if you are already under the effect of  Метаморфозы and vice versa, but on a single target you can also live under the effect of the Огненного клейма. Try to do so that at the time of the absence of active protection, you always have 4-5 souls for instant healing through an Взрывную душу.

Stats

Before you choose suitable gear, check item levels – that’s what’s really important. Never equip an item that is 10+ levels below, even if it provides better stats. It also means that Finesse and Endurance are the best stats for you, so we won’t mention them in the priority below.

Survivability stats:

Versatility > Haste > Crit = Mastery

Haste shortens the intervals between your automatic attacks and reduces the GCD and cooldowns of abilities such as Демонические шипы, Обжигающий жар, Бросок боевого клинка и Разлом.

Искусность повышает эффективность Демонических шипов and increases attack power. The characteristic helps to reduce the received physical damage, and with the help of attack power it increases the damage done, both physical and fire. But this is a rather weak stat, because under the effect of thorns we already have good survivability, and mastery looks like overkill. For this reason, it is on par with the crit.

Versatility is a passively good characteristic for all tanks – it increases the damage done and reduces the received damage by half.

Critical hit is by and large a pure DPS stat. The critical strike rating increases the chance of parrying an attack, but here there is its own diminishing – the more crit you have, the less chance of parrying a further set of characteristics. Also, critical hits with your fire attacks increase your self-healing. In general, this is a rather weak stat for a tank, and therefore it is on par with Mastery in last place.

For tanks, you can use Simcraft in terms of dps. Therefore, raidbots resources and the use of Pawn are welcome to optimize your character.

From the above characteristics and your character’s own simulation results, we draw conclusions on stones, chants and raid chemistry.

Gems

Enchants

Food

Flasks

Temporary buffs

BiS Gear + Trinkets

You’ve got to understand that BiS Gear for the tank in Shadowlands is very… relative. In any case, apart from rings and trinkets, you should aim for a higher ilvl. But anyway, here’s a BiS item list for you (remember to aim for the best possible ilvl!):

Macros

Прерывание with modifier, hold Shift to apply to your focus target, or apply to your current target by default:

/cast [mod:shift,@focus][]Disrupt

Cancel the Blessing of Protection aura:

/cancelaura Blessing of Protection

A macro for Инфернальный удар the cursor can be useful, without having to click where you want to jump:

/cast [@cursor] Infernal Strike

Taunt on the mouseover

/cast [@mouseover] Мучение

Addons

Addons for World of Warcraft is a very personal thing. Many good players don’t use them or use a bare minimum of them. Others do the opposite by completely re-building the game’s UI. I will suggest some addons that I use myself. These addons are not only good-looking, but they’re also very practical.

Very powerful and flexible addon which can display almost any information whenever you’ll need it. This addon began with displaying buffs, debuffs, and alerts for some actions in battles, but has gone a long way since then. Today WA can send boss info to other players, replace standard UI elements, track other players’ abilities, and much more.

You can find presets at wago.io, but I’ll point out the most useful of them:

 

This is a multifunctional addon for the nameplates of your enemies (health bars). Plater will allow you to keep track of your aggro, what are they casting and who is the target. You will also see mobs’ buffs and debuffs including the control effects.

Plater is also compatible with some modes suitable for various situations. You can find it at wago.io in the Plater category.

An addon that shows the total damage or heal of your party or the raid. But all of that is really detailed – buffs and debuffs uptimes, cast interrupts, phasing on boss fights, you can literally view everything.

An addon, that shows ads and boss cooldowns with the alert of when they will cast their abilities again. Very useful in raids and mythic+. You can replace it with a similar addon called Deadly Boss Mods if you want to.

Small addon that enables the auto-repair, trash loot auto-sell, instantly pick and turn-in quests, fast looting, and other useful stuff.

This addon is not very practical, but it can help you to completely redo your UI by your preferences. Like, every piece of UI. It is a very popular addon.

Pro Tips & Tricks

In this section I will talk about the various tricks of the tank DH; what and how to keep in mind in order to be most effective as a tank.

  • Using the Взрывная душа talent. You should try to use the ability with 4-5 available soul shards. Of course, there are situations when a heal is urgently needed and you have to use it on 2-3 shards, but usually it is better to wait until 4-5. In this case, Раскалывание душ should be used only when you do not have available Soul Shards. This ability is used in the Explosive Soul build only to waste anger.
  • Using defensive cooldowns. Cooldowns should always be used beforehand. Before taking damage, you should use Демонические шипы, Опустошение Скверной, Огненное клеймо или Метаморфозу. In case you start a pull or pick up a boss in a raid for some strong ability, without cooldowns you will receive full damage and your HP will greatly decrease. This will be additional stress for healers, and if you use cooldowns after taking damage, then their effectiveness will be lower. In Mythic + conditions, it is always worth starting the pull using cooldowns (with spikes or metamorphosis), since the maximum incoming damage occurs on the pull itself. Over time, the incoming damage will decrease (mobs will die, stay in control, or cast some ability without attacking you), or you will just start kiting the mobs.

Sometimes there are times when you find it difficult to determine when to use cooldowns. In such cases, you can simply use them on cooldown to reduce the total damage taken.

  • Using external cooldowns. The healers in your group also have saves – they can use them on you at the right time. Ask for saves, communicate with your healer, distribute your cooldowns so that they do not overlap with the defensive abilities of your healers.

External cooldowns include:

 

  • Dealing damage. There is often an opinion among tanks that it is not necessary to inflict maximum damage and that it is enough just not to die. This is only partly true. Undoubtedly, the top priority for a tank is survival. However, it’s worth always maximizing your damage dealt. The more damage – the easier and faster it will be to pass the key, go through a certain phase on the boss, or even kill him. Therefore, in this regard, tanks and healers are no different from simple damage dealers – everyone costs to maximize their damage.

Sometimes for this you need to change the build or distribute saves in another way – for those moments where it is critical.

Summing up

Vengeance Demon Hunter looks very strong at the start of Shadowlands, stronger than at the start of any expansion before. This spec has always been interesting in terms of gameplay – and remains so in the new expansion. However, now, based on the current tuning, content of any difficulty can be closed on the DH tank, including high Mythic + keys and raids of epochal difficulty.

 

Thank you for your attention, and I wish you all the best in the vastness of Azeroth!

 

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